Collision Course Century
by SarikOstheim
Summary: Two people wake up with half their memories gone and no idea where they are.One is not sure if he's supposed to love or hate the other;she just does what needs to be done.What they do know is that everyone big in the DC Wasteland wants a piece of them.


I do not own Fallout, Fallout 3, or any of it's factions, characters, items, ideas, or locations. I do not own Fallout 3 Nexus, Bushmaster, or any other trademarked name.

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_War. _It never changes. Ha ha...

Well, that's not completely true. To a small extent, war changes. Every year that goes by, we get better at it. Bigger guns, more advanced equipment, faster vehicles...we produce all this technology in the name of peaceful pursuits; then when we learn to weaponize it, we tell others that it's a deterrent, that we'll prevent more fights by having more weapons; then we tell ourselves that better, more powerful, more precise technology is more civilized, that less innocent lives will be lost with each shot, that only the bad guys will die. Then we try to tell ourselves that war itself is becoming more civilized by the way we carry it out, only to have our theories shot down by nuts who don't care about stupid conventions and their "rules of war". _ Geneva._ What a frickin' joke...

As far as recorded history goes, our earliest example of the natural, carnal man was found in two brothers: Cain and Abel. The good old Book says that Cain grew jealous of his brother Abel, who supposedly gained more praise from On High for his labors. We're told that how Cain lived his life was less than approved by God, but who knows: history becomes distorted, and only those who win or survive get to write it. But what we do know is that one day, Cain walked up behind Abel and clubbed him to death like an animal. Cain felt that his brother was getting something that belonged to him, so he killed him. He removed what he perceived as an obstacle to his own desires. Cain invented murder, and perhaps even the concept of one human killing another, and for it, he was cursed to wander the earth. For all we know, he might just still be around, laughing at us for our foolishness.

Through the following millennia, man continued to fight for everything from basic resources, to religious beliefs, to so little as a Greek diplomat's wife who couldn't keep it in her pants. He started with sticks and little leather pouches to sling stones at ridiculous speeds, then he invented the spear and the bow, the sword and shield, crossbows, catapults, ballistae, and all manner of blade and war machine.

Then, in some of the earliest annals of reliable recorded history, Chinese alchemists discovered gunpowder. Ironically, they were trying to discover an elixir of immortality for their Emperor. Similarly, a European man during the middle ages discovered phosphorous while trying to convert his own piss into gold. What he got instead was a thick, gloppy substance that exploded into flame when he so much as threw it. If only these men knew what their accidents would result in.

First came cannons. Then came the blunderbuss and the musket. Rifling of a barrel allowed for better cannons and firearms, Gatling guns, canister rounds, battleships, machine guns, tanks, bombs, rockets, missiles! And yet, man could still not satisfy his lust for war! The Germans of a bygone era produced a weapon so revolutionary that it was named by Hitler himself: the _Sturmgewehr_ 44, the "assault rifle". Soon after, the AK-47 and SKS, the FAL and G3, the M14 and M16. These were the weapons that would be the standard of future rifles for over a century. From a single concept coined by a single man, thousands of variations would be derived, and hundreds of millions of firearms would be produced.

But the age of gunpowder no longer existed. By the time these weapons had been produced, a terrible new weapon had already been unveiled. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the stages on which the power of the atom would perform for the first time, and what was hoped to be the last.

But rather than leaving such a terrible power as a crude concept, man sought to perfect it in the name of science. However, deep down inside, he knew better. No matter how much he tricked himself, he still could hear his carnal self whispering, "What better way to kill your enemies than to kill them all at once?" Yes, we ended up with nuclear power plants, but we also ended up with weapons capable of wiping out a city compact enough to fit in a suit case; a weapon the size of "Little Boy" now had the power to literally wipe small countries from the map when equipped with a tritium-based fusion warhead.

For several decades, never again was a nuclear weapon used for the purpose of mass slaughter. But those who gave in to their primal instincts, those who feared the world around them, who sought to destroy it, they changed that. They changed me.

Let's not even get started with me. I'm so messed up that I actually find myself laughing for no reason some nights. No amount of therapy or pre-war medicine will be able to help me. I was screwed up even then.

I knew how to love, once. I knew how to give many somethings my all, even though I received little in return; eventually, it was only lies, hurt, and betrayal. And despite this, somehow when the time came, I was willing to destroy everything I had, ruin lives, even kill for at least one of these somethings.

Because of my sacrifices, I got a second chance, yet I still screwed it up, except this time, I didn't say something out of anger at a bad time; I failed to be there. Despite all my weaknesses, my failings, my problems, I never failed to be there for her. For them. Not until now.

I don't know much about this "Great War", since I kind of just slept through it. It might have been World War III, the apocalypse that so many were waiting for, even praying for. And they got their answer, except so far, the only ones who got to disappear are probably buried real deep somewhere, not floating around in the clouds while billions of others got to burn and suffer. _Serves them right._ Or maybe...maybe we were all just so bad that we get to continue to burn and suffer. That's definitely my case.

I like to believe there is a purpose to everything, that there is a God, and that the two most beautiful things on Earth are finally resting in Paradise, finally free of the hardships that I unknowingly forced them to endure. I hope that someday, I can repent of my sins and join them.

But right now, the world needs help. Someone used to always tell me we were born in the time that we were most needed. Maybe I wasn't _born_ into my time, but it prepared me for now, where I have experienced the best and worst moments of my life. The world has a chance to rebuild, but if people like you, who hold on to corruption and greed at its pinnacle, continue to kill and destroy innocents like my family in the name of reconstruction, then it will be centuries, perhaps even a whole millennium, before a young child can be born to a family in a world where they don't have to learn to kill by their eighth birthday in order to survive. I have pushed this fight so far, and because of it I've made a name for myself, I have become an example for others to follow. For their sakes, I'm not about to back down.

But don't think that killing me will end this. I am but one soldier who fights on the front lines. There are now tens of thousands of us, just as there are now tens of thousands of you. But the Enclave lacks the one thing that might have ever allowed it to succeed: a just cause. Your greed causes you to use people like cattle; they are nothing more than numbers on paper to you. You promise equality and a fair chance for everyone, but you step on the heads of those who follow you to fulfill your own selfish desires. I only wish to see a safe world for the children who are to be born over the next decade, and hopefully their children. This may be a fairy tale, but once this small pocket of humanity starts down that path, I will step down. I will no longer exist.

If someone supports or follows the Enclave, I will kill him should he attempt to impede me. So I warn you: join me, get out of my way, or follow me. I will welcome you with open arms or wave politely as I pass by you, but do not get in my way, because I will destroy you without so much as thinking. I admit: I am crazy, and always have been, but now, I have nothing to give my love to, I have nothing to lose. So instead, I will direct my hate at the Enclave and their allies, and I will hunt down their leaders until either my last breath or theirs.

You wanted a name from me earlier. I used to have one. But any semblance of that person is now gone. The last of my compassion died when you killed my family. I didn't always treat them right, both before and after the Great War, but you didn't have the right to take them from me in the middle of the night, in a place where they were harmless to you.

However, I have earned myself another name for myself. I think it's actually quite appropriate. I'm known among the Brotherhood as the "Sergeant".

Now, are you going to join me, let me go, or do you plan on dying here?

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The young Enclave officer walked out of the interrogation room, letting out a sigh of relief while she fell into the door as it sealed itself behind her. The mythotical young man didn't appear to be much until you looked him in the eye and began a conversation. At first glance, she had a hard time believing he was confirmed to have killed over one hundred Enclave soldiers on the battlefield personally. Now, despite his young age, she had no doubts anymore.

After recomposing herself, the young woman strolled into the adjoining room where a team of psychologists, neurologists, and researchers were trying to figure out who and what this guy was.

"Any luck finding files?" the officer questioned.

"I've had absolutely none in finding any of his biological signatures in the pre-war databases," a raven-haired Sergeant a year or so older than her replied. "DNA, thermal signatures, fingerprints...nothing."

"You're not looking hard enough," said a deep voice from behind the young woman.

"Room, attention!" the officer yelled, not bothering to turn as she stiffened her back and glued her arms to her sides.

"At ease," the arriving man said boredom. "I found your info."

"May I ask where, Captain?" the young woman inquired as she relaxed. "We've spent the past day searching through our records. I would simply like to know for future searches."

"The U.S. Government didn't use the kind of computer systems we use now until the mid twenty-first century, Lieutenant," the senior officer answered. "I had to go through the old Department of Defense files to find your man. Apparently, he was a survivor of the attacks on July Fourth of 2024."

"Sir?" the Lieutenant questioned.

"It was a series of attacks by Islamic extremists on American soil," the Captain stated. "They managed to smuggle in or domestically produce at least twenty nuclear fission warheads ranging in yield from one to five kilotons. Various government agencies managed to stop all but three of the attacks. He happened to be in one of those three cities. Within six months, he and a couple of his associates completely disappeared off of the radar."

The Captain handed the young Lieutenant a binder filled with freshly printed files. Her eyes widened after skimming over the first several pages.

"All by nineteen?" she questioned. "He is quite a piece of work. How did he manage all of this?"

"I looked over that entire file thrice," the Captain replied, leaning back into a wall and folding his arms. "Chance, most likely. Luck. It's too bad his emotional stability was compromised at the time."

The Lieutenant froze for a moment, then continued looking over the file.

"Going through what he did will do that to a person," she remarked. "Bipolar disorder ran in his family for at least three prior generations, and for the majority of his life, his mother was unstable while her medications were being balanced out. He was attacked at eleven with a knife by an older boy while attending an encampment for some 'Boy Scout' organization, developed anti-social behavior for the next four years, then had to deal with two sets of unstable parents during one of his relationships at eighteen and nineteen. Then..."

The Lieutenant stopped for a second, then scanned and rescanned the last few pages she had gone over several times.

"Wait a minute," she remarked. "Did you realize that one of the woman he had dated worked in one of the cities that was attacked?"

"Yes," the Captain replied. "It doesn't take much to put everything together."

"Wow," the Lieutenant said, grinning. "Quite a piece of work. So, what the hell is a man from the twenty-first century doing here?"

"I don't know, but I think I know what's got him so pissed off," the Captain said smugly. "At some point, our men killed his one weakness. Probably when we launched that sneak attack on that one island base."

"And so he's out for revenge," the Lieutenant observed with a cold tone. "He truly believes that he has nothing left to lose."

"Exactly," the Captain said. "Which is why I'm thinking of giving the order to execute him."

The Lieutenant looked over at one of the monitors receiving feed from the interrogation room. The "Sergeant" was glaring up at the camera, a most crazed looking grin dominating his face.

"Doctor, give me a summary of his physical and mental integrity from what you can tell in those scans," the Lieutenant ordered.

The eldest of the doctors sitting in the room swiveled his chair about and rolled it off to the side, gesturing at the displays before him.

"If you take a look at our scans here, you'll see that everything is stable," the older man explained. "Normal would not be the word, but there are no chemical or bio-electrical imbalances anywhere in his body. His body is working perfectly. His brain activity is nearly fifty percent higher than a normal human beings. His reaction times to external stimuli are, how should I put it...inhuman?"

"So basically what you're saying is, he acts crazy only because he thinks he's crazy."

"Essentially," one of other doctors said, a middle-aged woman with graying red hair. "Any and all of his actions, at least as of recent, have been committed in complete deliberateness while in a chemically stable mindset."

The Lieutenant looked over at the monitor again. For some reason, she couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for the man. However, he was extremely dangerous. During the month her team had been tracking him down, he had killed nearly fifty Enclave single-handed, and another one hundred or so could be attributed to him by matching his profile to recordings from past battles. For all she knew, his kill rate could be higher. This man was intelligent, determined, and physically lethal. That all thrown in with the fact that he had lost the will to live made him infinitely dangerous not only to the Enclave, but to her immediate team.

"Captain, I am in agreement with your recommendation," the Lieutenant said. "How were you thinking of carrying it out?"

"I was thinking Cyanide gas through the ventilation," the Captain replied. "Relatively quick, but hardly painless."

"Can't we just shoot him?" the Lieutenant asked.

"I would rather not go toe to toe with this guy. As crazy as he is, who knows what might be up his sleeves."

The Lieutenant let out a huff of breath through her nose, the briskly turned about face.

"Doctor, would you make the arrangements?" she questioned.

"I am already in the process," the senior doctor replied.

"Thank you," the Lieutenant curtsied before walking out. She wasn't about to watch this. It wasn't her style.

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The Sergeant smelled something. He took in a deep breath, then let it out again, choking as he did. It smelled like...nuts. More specifically, almonds.

He looked up at the camera and grinned. So that's how they were going to kill him. With gas.

"Fools," he remarked underneath his breath. They weren't going to kill him with this. They just had no idea what they were dealing with...

The Sergeant began pressing on a small spot on his palm. After rubbing around a bit, he hit something, causing a burning pain to shoot through his hand and up his arm. He pressed harder, and he felt as something began poke at the surface of his skin. He pressed one more time, and a blood-covered sliver-thin piece of metal pushed through. He gripped at the small device and maneuvered it to his cuffs. They weren't much different than the pre-war designs that he had trained himself to break out of. Just had to get something thin up underneath the locking device and..._click_! His right hand was free. He quickly proceeded to free his left hand, then went to work at the cuffs on his feet.

As he working on freeing himself, the Sergeant began making a swallowing motion with his tongue, which was difficult since he was tempted to choke every couple seconds. However, within about twenty seconds, he achieved his objective, and the floor in front of him was covered in vomit. Another couple attempts, and he heaved out an extremely small cylinder-shaped object.

The Sergeant freed himself, then grabbed the cylinder just as door split apart, two guards wearing combat armor and gas masks proceeding in. However, by the time they were raising their weapons, each had a tiny disk shaped object flying at them. The disks stuck to their armor, then exploded. One man was killed outright, while the other fell to the ground, gripping at his stomach.

The Sergeant sighed as he slowly walked over, carrying the knife he had stored in the cylinder, which was actually two more of his specially-made explosives attached to each other. Each disk consisted mostly of magnets, which allowed it to latch on to most combat armor quite efficiently, or at least the equipment attached to it. When the explosives made contact with the armor after being armed, the fluctuations in the magnetic field around the bomb triggered it, causing shaped charges to explode in both directions, essentially using the same concept as a pre-war RPG. He could take down someone in all but the toughest power armor with one of these, and even then, if he got them over an optics piece or near the neck, they were screwed.

The Sergeant drew the tiny, two inch blade that he normally reserved for throwing from short distances, and put it to the poor guard's throat. He was tempted to execute him right then and there, but after looking into the man's eyes, he realized that he couldn't be any older than...well, him.

Instead, the Sergeant ripped the guard's gas mask away and placed it on his own face, removing the filter from the man's belt. He took in a deep breath after the thing sealed to his face, relieved that he could breath without choking for a few seconds.

The poor child, though, he was having a coughing fit. Each time he gasped for air, blood spewed in and out of his mouth.

The Sergeant thought about putting him out of his misery for a second, but he left it. He was tired of the murder, and though the chances of it were slim, the kid might just be able to crawl out of this stairwell and get some help.

The Sergeant was jerked back to reality when he noticed an alarm in the background, something he probably should have noticed earlier.

He grabbed up the ACR the guard had been carrying, placed a spare magazine in the back waistband of his pants, then took a moment to prioritize. First, he needed to find an antidote for the cyanide poisoning. While it wouldn't kill _him_, it could make his life unpleasant for several days if left untreated. Then, he needed to find out about his past. Although most of his memories had returned, there were still things that he needed confirmation on. He remembered something about Lyme disease, and that his mother was bipolar, and how she had held the, "You'll be exactly like me," card over him during some of their more brutal arguments. He needed to know.

And he needed to know what kind of pains he had caused _her_. She was the most important thing to him, and he had a feeling that was at one point one source of his problems. He certainly knew that was why he had been so overbearing the first few weeks after they had awoken.

After that...well, he'd see what kind of mood he was in later. Maybe he would sneak out of this facility, or maybe he would overload its generator and blow everyone to hell.

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I am an avid fan of Fallout, a good fan of Fallout 3, and an even bigger fan of adding to that universe through modding. As I go throughout this story, I will vouch for any mods that have helped to inspire items, characters, and events.

Mentioned in this story are items from "Zealotlees ACR" mod, located at Fallout 3 Nexus. This mod adds the Adaptive Combat Rifle from Bushmaster as a gun with fully customizable modules, including barrel length, scopes, and attachments.


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